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Christmas in October with Shanna Hatfield · WriterCon

0:00
Speaker 1: This week on the writer Con podcast.
0:03
Speaker 2: Believing yourself don't matter. Run anybody else tells you believe
0:07
Speaker 2: in yourself.
0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to writer Coon, a gathering place for writers to
0:10
Speaker 1: share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
0:14
Speaker 1: hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
0:17
Speaker 1: the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award
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Speaker 1: winning author of the want LNN Files book series.
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Speaker 3: Thank you, Jesse Ulrich. Hey, they're writers. Thanks for joining
0:30
Speaker 3: us today. We are back for our fifth season of
0:34
Speaker 3: writer Con, which is actually a lot more writer Con
0:37
Speaker 3: than it sounds like. I mean, we've done eighteen conferences,
0:40
Speaker 3: plus this is our one hundred and ninety sixth episode
0:46
Speaker 3: of this podcast. I didn't actually start breaking them down
0:49
Speaker 3: into seasons until Laura joined the team, and now I
0:52
Speaker 3: just do it every year as we start fresh again
0:54
Speaker 3: after the writer Con break. And you know what that means.
0:58
Speaker 3: It means we're just a few episodes. It's away from
1:00
Speaker 3: our two hundredth episode. I mean, it seems like we
1:04
Speaker 3: should do something special to celebrate that. Anybody have any ideas, Lara, Jesse,
1:10
Speaker 3: what do.
1:10
Speaker 4: You think James Patterson appearance.
1:16
Speaker 3: That would be special? Might have trouble booking, but I
1:19
Speaker 3: will get on that.
1:21
Speaker 4: Lara. What do you think?
1:22
Speaker 5: Hmm, maybe we should have cake next time.
1:28
Speaker 3: Well that's a lot easier than getting James Patterson that
1:30
Speaker 3: much is for a.
1:31
Speaker 1: Certain It's not like he's busy writing.
1:33
Speaker 6: Oh got him.
1:37
Speaker 3: We could all wear party hats. Although it'll be December,
1:41
Speaker 3: so you know it's not quite but practically our Christmas episode.
1:45
Speaker 3: I guess if we skipped one, it could be our
1:46
Speaker 3: Christmas episode. But nah, we'll do two hundred and let
1:50
Speaker 3: two one everyone.
1:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, people love hearing people eat, so listen, there are
1:59
Speaker 1: there are, there is any people who enjoy hearing people eat.
2:02
Speaker 1: So we get some new new listeners that way.
2:05
Speaker 4: How can that be? Is that like a podcast? Yeah?
2:08
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah.
2:10
Speaker 4: That's people talking softly, not chowing.
2:13
Speaker 1: I believe there's someone called a muckbong. For our younger listeners,
2:17
Speaker 1: it's people eating very crunchy food.
2:20
Speaker 3: The things I learned thanks to you guys. Oh okay,
2:25
Speaker 3: our special guest. Our interview today is with Shanna Hatfield.
2:30
Speaker 3: Shanna is the author of Get This. You won't even
2:33
Speaker 3: believe the real number. Let me give you a hint.
2:35
Speaker 3: It's more than a hundred books she's written, and they
2:38
Speaker 3: are first rate stuff, one awards, hit bestseller list, and
2:43
Speaker 3: she's got a new book that's particularly special coming out
2:47
Speaker 3: called The Bridge, and we're going to talk to her
2:49
Speaker 3: about that and everything else.
2:51
Speaker 4: But first the.
2:53
Speaker 3: News news story number one, we've got new developments in
3:14
Speaker 3: the Anthropic lawsuit. Now, we covered that lawsuit, and we
3:18
Speaker 3: covered the settlement, which was perhaps prematurely announced not by
3:23
Speaker 3: us but by everyone because the judge hadn't signed off
3:27
Speaker 3: on it. Well, now he has signed off on it,
3:32
Speaker 3: and there have been other developments as well. We reported
3:37
Speaker 3: before that it looked like the settlement was going to
3:39
Speaker 3: give three thousand dollars per book to every author whose
3:43
Speaker 3: book was improperly treated by Anthropic, and now it sounds
3:48
Speaker 3: like it might be less than that because somebody's got
3:51
Speaker 3: to pay legal fees and the enormous costs involved in
3:55
Speaker 3: a class action suit. I mean, how did this not
4:00
Speaker 3: come to people's attention before anyway? So first, there is
4:03
Speaker 3: now a searchable database you can go to so you
4:06
Speaker 3: can find out which, if any, of your books are
4:09
Speaker 3: included in this settlement, and I will put a link
4:12
Speaker 3: to that in the show notes.
4:14
Speaker 4: It's also got.
4:15
Speaker 3: An explanation of the timeline, how to file a claim,
4:18
Speaker 3: and everything else that might be involved. The settlement website
4:22
Speaker 3: is also live now, but there's at least one more
4:25
Speaker 3: development that you need to know about before you fill
4:30
Speaker 3: out that claim for him, and that is you can
4:33
Speaker 3: only make a claim if you filed for copyright protection
4:36
Speaker 3: from the government when your book was published in the
4:38
Speaker 3: first place, which is today a largely unnecessary stealth step
4:44
Speaker 3: that most self publishers don't do. And for that matter,
4:48
Speaker 3: it turns out many major publishers haven't been bothering either, like,
4:52
Speaker 3: for instance, McMillan, one of the Big Five, though they
4:56
Speaker 3: have said publicly that they will pay the settlement for
5:00
Speaker 3: any of their authors that are shut out because no
5:03
Speaker 3: copyright protection was ever filed for I mean, just fyi
5:08
Speaker 3: in today's world, I mean legally, as soon as you
5:11
Speaker 3: create a work, it's copyrighted, it's yours. You only file
5:14
Speaker 3: for a copyright to prove it later if it comes up.
5:18
Speaker 3: And I guess that's why it's relevant here, because if
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Speaker 3: the court's going to award a settlement, it has to
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Speaker 3: know that you're really in the class, and that means
5:25
Speaker 3: you've got to have copyright protection, which is you know,
5:29
Speaker 3: I had about sixty books on the list or originally,
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Speaker 3: and now it's down to about twenty five once I
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Speaker 3: narrate it down to the ones that have actually had
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Speaker 3: a copyright filed for them. I don't know, Laura, are
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Speaker 3: you going to file acclaim for your books?
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Speaker 5: I don't think any of them ever had the copyright
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Speaker 5: officially registered.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, Jesse, what's your take?
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Speaker 3: I remember you said on a previous podcast that you
5:55
Speaker 3: don't think AI should be used for creative work, and
5:57
Speaker 3: I totally agree, But now they seem to be indirectly
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Speaker 3: paying for other people's creative work. Like if we give
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Speaker 3: you three thousand, probably actually less, that makes it all okay?
6:11
Speaker 4: You buying that.
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Speaker 1: Here's what bothers me. One like anthropics should be paying
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Speaker 1: the legal fees and should be coming out of the settlement.
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Speaker 4: That should be beyond the settlement.
6:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, and two like the whole cover I think is ridiculous,
6:25
Speaker 1: Like if it took your book, it took your book,
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Speaker 1: like I would get in I would get in legal
6:30
Speaker 1: trouble for illegally downloading a book I did not pay for.
6:35
Speaker 1: That's right, So why aren't why aren't they They're just
6:40
Speaker 1: being able to have the ability to script. The Internet
6:42
Speaker 1: does not give you the freedom to take the entire airnet.
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Speaker 1: And I know that because one time I download a
6:47
Speaker 1: movie and got a letter from my cable provider saying,
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Speaker 1: we know you download an illegal movie.
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Speaker 4: Don't do it again. Yeah.
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Speaker 5: So no, it's pretty galling. We thought that this was
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Speaker 5: going to be a good thing for maybe a win
7:02
Speaker 5: for authors, and now instead it's I don't know, it
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Speaker 5: really is plus of a win.
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Speaker 3: I mean, they've still got a lot of money, what
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Speaker 3: like a billion dollars to hand out or something, But.
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Speaker 5: Well, now, so who gets it now? Because they are
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Speaker 5: a whole heck of a lot of us that have
7:18
Speaker 5: always been told this isn't really necessary your copyright. Well
7:22
Speaker 5: it isn't as soon as you publish.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I wonder if the court and the people
7:28
Speaker 3: involved in this really realize that there's a reason why
7:31
Speaker 3: people haven't been filing that. You know, I understand the
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Speaker 3: court wanting, you know, some measure of proof that you're
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Speaker 3: actually a member of this class, but there needs to
7:41
Speaker 3: be some secondary and if you didn't file for copyright protection,
7:46
Speaker 3: here's what else you can do. Like Jesse's saying, you
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Speaker 3: think you know if I took one of those non
7:50
Speaker 3: copyrighted book and published it under my name, I'd be
7:54
Speaker 3: sued the next day.
7:55
Speaker 4: Right, So how is this different? Yes? All right?
7:58
Speaker 3: News story number two two equally unencouraging. Wait, you remember
8:04
Speaker 3: during the live writer Con broadcast we talked about some
8:07
Speaker 3: of the cool new book clubs that are starting people
8:10
Speaker 3: reading books alive and having retreat weekends and whatnot. Well,
8:14
Speaker 3: it seems there are also some book club scams that
8:17
Speaker 3: are literally stealing from writers. As if there weren't enough
8:20
Speaker 3: people trying to steal from writers already.
8:24
Speaker 4: Story goes.
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Speaker 3: Woman named Melissa Spear was offering what's now being called
8:29
Speaker 3: the book club scam, something that many authors have received
8:33
Speaker 3: in recent weeks, including I got an email from someone
8:37
Speaker 3: who is at writer Con this year who was emailed
8:40
Speaker 3: with the same scam. Lots of people have gotten it.
8:44
Speaker 3: The person involved claim to be the quote curator of
8:48
Speaker 3: a private community of over two thousand readers who devour
8:52
Speaker 3: books like caffeine addicts in a library en quote, and
8:57
Speaker 3: then they offered to share the person in questions book
9:01
Speaker 3: with all those readers for a price, of course, and
9:07
Speaker 3: turns out it's a scam. They're taking the money. They're
9:10
Speaker 3: not doing anything for you. I mean, what really could
9:12
Speaker 3: they do. Sometimes these book club scams are actually using
9:17
Speaker 3: the name of a real book club. Other times it's
9:21
Speaker 3: just totally fictional. This is what Victoria Strauss a Writer
9:25
Speaker 3: Beware says, And let me say again, as we've said before,
9:29
Speaker 3: writer Beware is your friend. It is a great website.
9:32
Speaker 3: If you're questioning whether something is a scam or not,
9:35
Speaker 3: go to writer Beware and find out.
9:37
Speaker 4: Here's what Victoria said. Quote.
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Speaker 3: The catch, as you'll doubtless have guessed, is that the
9:42
Speaker 3: author has to pay a fee for their appearance, like
9:45
Speaker 3: appearing on some online interviews she's talking about, which has
9:49
Speaker 3: been variously described as a spot fee or a spotlight fee,
9:53
Speaker 3: or a spot securing fee, a participation fee whatever. Real
9:57
Speaker 3: book clubs don't charge fees to their guests, do they.
10:01
Speaker 4: And the amount of money.
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Speaker 3: They're asking four ranges anywhere from fifty five to like
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Speaker 3: six hundred, and some of them have very tiers and
10:10
Speaker 3: various tiers.
10:11
Speaker 4: And like I.
10:11
Speaker 3: Said, I know this is not theoretical because I got
10:16
Speaker 3: an email from someone Laura and I both know who. Basically,
10:20
Speaker 3: you know it's tempting if you've never been interviewed before.
10:24
Speaker 3: Then the idea of doing some kind of online interview
10:27
Speaker 3: that you can post on YouTube and tiktoka whatever sounds cool.
10:31
Speaker 3: On the other hand, the question he asked me was
10:33
Speaker 3: they want five hundred and ninety nine dollars. You think
10:36
Speaker 3: I'll ever make that back? And I said, no, not in.
10:38
Speaker 4: A million years.
10:39
Speaker 3: I don't think you'll make one hundred dollars back. I mean,
10:42
Speaker 3: if you just think it sounds fun, okay, fine, But
10:47
Speaker 3: if you're thinking you're going to get that money back,
10:49
Speaker 3: forget about it. I think, Laura, make a note. I
10:52
Speaker 3: think we should have an entire masterclass at writer Con
10:55
Speaker 3: next year to describe one how to mark it well
10:59
Speaker 3: and two how to not waste money by doing things
11:02
Speaker 3: that won't pay off or are just flat out scams.
11:07
Speaker 3: And it is worth reading Victoria Strauss's entire report on this,
11:11
Speaker 3: so I'll put a link to that in the show
11:13
Speaker 3: notes as well. Laura, I can tell your outrage. What
11:16
Speaker 3: are your thoughts on this?
11:19
Speaker 5: In the past month, another author has come to me
11:23
Speaker 5: with not this, but something else something similar, asking me,
11:29
Speaker 5: can this possibly be real? Is this legit? Have you
11:31
Speaker 5: heard about this? And I go look, and it's it's
11:35
Speaker 5: always a scam. There's always something. There's always someone trying
11:41
Speaker 5: to take our money in return for promises of.
11:45
Speaker 3: And sometimes it's hard to distinguish from legit pr because
11:49
Speaker 3: sometimes in the world of promotion, you do do things
11:52
Speaker 3: that aren't going to earn their money back. It's a
11:54
Speaker 3: lost leader, or you're trying to supermote, super promote the
11:58
Speaker 3: first book in a series. Okay, that's a calculated I
12:01
Speaker 3: won't say gamble, that's a choice. It's totally different from
12:05
Speaker 3: people waving ooh. There's a whole community of readers. I'm
12:09
Speaker 3: going to put you in touch with Jesse. Is there
12:12
Speaker 3: a way to stop these scams from happening?
12:15
Speaker 1: I mean, it's true like what your parents taught you
12:18
Speaker 1: when you were a kid, which is, if it looks
12:20
Speaker 1: too good to be true, it probably is so like
12:24
Speaker 1: and also at this point, like anytime I get any
12:29
Speaker 1: email that I'm even slightly curious about, I will google
12:33
Speaker 1: the name of the company. I will google with the
12:35
Speaker 1: subject of the of the email is and usually get
12:37
Speaker 1: a pretty good answer of whether it's a spam or not.
12:39
Speaker 1: You know a spam or you know.
12:45
Speaker 4: A scam. Scams the world looking for Yeah, yeah, or
12:48
Speaker 4: if you google them, go ahead.
12:50
Speaker 5: I think anyone who promises you that they're going to
12:54
Speaker 5: make your book a best seller, it's a scam.
12:58
Speaker 7: Yeah, I can tell you that.
13:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a big red flag.
13:03
Speaker 3: Yeah here, it wasn't exactly best sellers. We're going to
13:06
Speaker 3: hook you up with all these readers and you'll make
13:08
Speaker 3: your money back.
13:09
Speaker 4: But no way that's going to happen.
13:13
Speaker 3: All right, let's move to Kraft Corner today. On Craft
13:16
Speaker 3: Corner we have longtime writer con friend Barry Friedman, whose
13:20
Speaker 3: new book The Third and his series of humorous recollections
13:24
Speaker 3: of his late fact father who is named Jack, which
13:27
Speaker 3: was why the book which we can't say the title
13:30
Speaker 3: of on this podcast, but it's Jack, Use your imagination three,
13:34
Speaker 3: I'm the Father, and it has just been released on
13:38
Speaker 3: the fourteenth. Check the show notes for a link to
13:40
Speaker 3: that as well. In the meantime, here are Barry's thoughts
13:44
Speaker 3: on keeping reality in your fiction.
13:52
Speaker 6: Craft Quarner, Hi, this is Barry Friedman. You know Red Smith,
13:56
Speaker 6: really famous New York Times sports writer, maybe the best
13:59
Speaker 6: New York Times sports maybe the best sports writer. Once said,
14:02
Speaker 6: writing is easy. You just sit at a typewriter, and
14:04
Speaker 6: open a vein. Back then, people use typewriters. You can
14:08
Speaker 6: sit at a computer, you can set the notepad, just
14:10
Speaker 6: open a vein. Just be careful about the blood. The
14:12
Speaker 6: point is that blood is the truth.
14:15
Speaker 8: That's the story. And nonfiction and narrative and memoir. You
14:20
Speaker 8: need to show people, show.
14:22
Speaker 6: People the blood, not just tell people what you think
14:25
Speaker 6: of the blood. Now, Norman Mailer and I should probably
14:27
Speaker 6: clean this up, but it's a Fretey website, free podcast.
14:30
Speaker 4: What do I care?
14:31
Speaker 8: Said that fiction is bullshit, It's all nonfiction. What that
14:35
Speaker 8: means is everything comes from truth, from reality. When you write,
14:40
Speaker 8: keep that reality in mind. You are bringing reality to
14:45
Speaker 8: your reader.
14:45
Speaker 6: I'll give you an example, two examples. When I was younger,
14:49
Speaker 6: my father was a great bowler. That's example one. Example two.
14:53
Speaker 6: When I was younger, my father had one hundred and
14:56
Speaker 6: seventy five average as a bowler. He was good enough
14:59
Speaker 6: to join the PBA Tour, the Professional Bowlers Association.
15:02
Speaker 8: But men back then did not go home and tell
15:05
Speaker 8: their wives, honey, I'm leaving Corporate America to join the
15:08
Speaker 8: PBA Tour.
15:09
Speaker 6: See the difference. See the difference. In the first case,
15:14
Speaker 6: I'm talking about the son my father the bowler. In
15:18
Speaker 6: the second case, Jack Friedman could have been a professional buller.
15:23
Speaker 8: That's the difference. The world has to be hits. I
15:29
Speaker 8: am the delivery, the deliverer of that world, in other
15:33
Speaker 8: words reality. As a writer, I'm the waiter. I bring
15:41
Speaker 8: it to the reader and then I get out of
15:43
Speaker 8: the way.
15:45
Speaker 6: Good luck to you.
15:46
Speaker 4: Thank you Barry Friedman.
15:47
Speaker 3: Remember his new book goes on sale October fourteen.
15:51
Speaker 4: You can get it right now.
15:53
Speaker 3: All right, now, let's talk to Shanna Hatfield. Shanna Hatfield,
16:05
Speaker 3: Welcome to the podcast.
16:08
Speaker 2: Hi, I am super excited to be here with you today.
16:11
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for the invitation.
16:14
Speaker 3: Thank you for being here. So, Shanna traditional first question,
16:18
Speaker 3: if you could offer writers one piece of advice, what
16:22
Speaker 3: would it be.
16:24
Speaker 2: Believe in yourself, no matter what anybody else tells you,
16:27
Speaker 2: believe in yourself.
16:30
Speaker 5: Thank you for that.
16:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, great advice. So tell us your origin story. How
16:36
Speaker 3: do you get started writing.
16:39
Speaker 7: I grew up with a.
16:41
Speaker 2: Mom who loved to read, and she shared that with me.
16:45
Speaker 2: She got me reading books as early as I could read.
16:49
Speaker 2: And we lived on a farm about thirty miles from
16:53
Speaker 2: the library, so going to library was a big deal.
16:56
Speaker 7: We got to go once a month and check out
16:59
Speaker 7: as many books as they would let us.
17:01
Speaker 2: So just that love of reading read to a love
17:04
Speaker 2: of stories.
17:05
Speaker 7: And I always wanted to write.
17:07
Speaker 2: A book, but instead of pursuing that, I spent ten
17:12
Speaker 2: years as a newspaper journalist, and then I switched gears
17:15
Speaker 2: into marketing and I just really missed writing.
17:19
Speaker 7: And one day I'd read this book that was.
17:22
Speaker 2: Not very well written, and it was published by a
17:25
Speaker 2: big publishing house, and I said to my husband, why
17:28
Speaker 2: would a publisher invest money in this? I could do
17:30
Speaker 2: better than this, And so he just looked at me
17:33
Speaker 2: and he said, so do it. So I sat down
17:36
Speaker 2: and started writing my first book in the Bridge. My
17:40
Speaker 2: book coming out is actually my one hundred and thirty
17:43
Speaker 2: fourth books.
17:44
Speaker 4: So hotally smokes love it.
17:47
Speaker 7: I absolutely love it.
17:49
Speaker 3: Okay, that detail was not in your bio one hundred
17:51
Speaker 3: and thirty fourth Seriously, are they under multiple names?
17:57
Speaker 7: Nope? All under my name?
17:59
Speaker 6: Wow.
18:00
Speaker 5: Oh that is super impressive. Congratulations, Good for you.
18:04
Speaker 8: You.
18:05
Speaker 5: So you mentioned that you grew up on a farm,
18:09
Speaker 5: and you've said before that that offered you many learning experiences.
18:15
Speaker 5: Could you give us an example of that, Like, what
18:17
Speaker 5: was it like growing up like.
18:19
Speaker 7: That, sure, but we all chipped in, We all helped.
18:25
Speaker 2: My dad when I was little, called me his sidekick,
18:28
Speaker 2: and I went with them, you know, from the time
18:31
Speaker 2: I was old enough to walk wherever Dad went, I
18:34
Speaker 2: really was his tag along. And I think just watching
18:40
Speaker 2: what a what a great work ethic my family had,
18:44
Speaker 2: you know, that taught me a lot. And just that
18:47
Speaker 2: drive to work hard was a big thing. And just
18:52
Speaker 2: to be good people, you know, to be caring, to
18:54
Speaker 2: be part of the community. All of that were lessons
18:58
Speaker 2: I learned when I was a child held and I
19:00
Speaker 2: feel like that really carries over into the books I write.
19:03
Speaker 2: That sense of community and that sense of being part
19:07
Speaker 2: of something bigger than just yourself, and that drive to
19:12
Speaker 2: work really hard and to do good.
19:17
Speaker 5: Yeah. Very nice. I think a lot of authors kind
19:23
Speaker 5: of feel that way, that they we just seem to
19:25
Speaker 5: run into just a lot of really good people when
19:28
Speaker 5: we're interviewing here. So your latest book, your new one,
19:32
Speaker 5: The Bridge, appears to be a little bit of a departure,
19:36
Speaker 5: but it involves a series character are terrains tell us
19:41
Speaker 5: about that?
19:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the Bridge is a little different. I normally
19:47
Speaker 2: write historical and contemporary sweet and wholesomer robiances. I mean
19:51
Speaker 2: they're just the warm, fuzzy, you know, heartwarming and this
19:56
Speaker 2: book has a definite heartwarming ending. But they're the whole
20:00
Speaker 2: suspense and drama and all this other stuff going on
20:04
Speaker 2: in this one.
20:05
Speaker 7: And Archer is our lead character.
20:08
Speaker 2: He's a police sergeant who excels it negotiating, and so
20:13
Speaker 2: he has worked hard all year long to be able
20:15
Speaker 2: to have Christmas off with his wife and he's all
20:19
Speaker 2: set to enjoy a very breastful Christmas Eve until his
20:24
Speaker 2: wife gets home from work and you know, he's just
20:27
Speaker 2: kicked back this bowl of fruity cereal that he never
20:30
Speaker 2: gets to eat and just having a peaceful morning when
20:33
Speaker 2: his boss calls and it's like, we have a situation,
20:37
Speaker 2: we need to here, And he doesn't pause, he doesn't hesitate,
20:41
Speaker 2: he goes and I just I love that Archer is
20:45
Speaker 2: so dedicated, so loyal and really just a caring guy,
20:49
Speaker 2: like he knows he can help, so he does.
20:55
Speaker 3: So would you say it's fair to call this a
20:58
Speaker 3: Christmas novel? And people listening to this podcast are going
21:01
Speaker 3: to be thinking it's October, but that's when that's when
21:06
Speaker 3: people release Christmas novels, right, even though we're still a
21:10
Speaker 3: few weeks from Halloween.
21:13
Speaker 4: Yeah.
21:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I had a book called The Midnight Before Christmas.
21:16
Speaker 3: There's a Christmas book came out in October, and I'm.
21:18
Speaker 4: Like, what are they doing?
21:19
Speaker 3: But you know, I guess they know, right, And you've
21:23
Speaker 3: done Christmas books before, right, You've got a series of them.
21:26
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yeah, I love writing Christmas stories, so I
21:30
Speaker 2: usually released one, if not more, during the holiday season.
21:34
Speaker 4: That's smart.
21:34
Speaker 2: I could definitely call The Bridge a Christmas story because
21:38
Speaker 2: the whole story takes place on Christmas Eve.
21:41
Speaker 3: Your back cover says, a Christmas Eve that changes everything.
21:46
Speaker 3: So that's that's like the Midnight before Christmas. Oh my gosh,
21:50
Speaker 3: that's that's so people are going to leave this with
21:55
Speaker 3: a Christmas spirit, a Christmas feeling. Is that fair to
21:58
Speaker 3: say it is?
22:01
Speaker 2: I think you get the Christmas feeling more so towards
22:05
Speaker 2: the end of the book than at the beginning. The
22:08
Speaker 2: beginning's all the person in crisis, Archer responding, you know,
22:13
Speaker 2: things happening on the bridge, so there's not a lot
22:16
Speaker 2: of festive cheer in that. But as you progress in
22:19
Speaker 2: the story, I think it just wraps readers up in
22:24
Speaker 2: that whole feeling of Christmas and giving and sharing and hope.
22:28
Speaker 4: Right, well, don't diss the ending.
22:30
Speaker 3: I was telling you this before we started recording, but
22:33
Speaker 3: I got the copy and started reading last night, and
22:36
Speaker 3: let me put this way, when I finally fell asleep,
22:39
Speaker 3: it wasn't because the book was boring. It's exceptionally immersive
22:43
Speaker 3: and a very good read.
22:45
Speaker 4: I was saying.
22:46
Speaker 3: It's a departure because in the past, you've written a
22:50
Speaker 3: lot of contemporary novels, right, which are both funny and sexy.
22:55
Speaker 3: Is you might expect that you're called well maybe not
22:59
Speaker 3: since you called them clean romances, but they kind of are, right,
23:03
Speaker 3: And you've done historical westerns. That's the Summer Creek series, right.
23:10
Speaker 7: Summer Boast contemp.
23:11
Speaker 2: I have Penileton Petticoats and Baker City brides or those.
23:16
Speaker 3: Are the westerns. Okay, what can you just not settle
23:19
Speaker 3: on a genre? What's the deal here?
23:21
Speaker 7: I don't know.
23:24
Speaker 2: Writing in different genres just I have a very active imagination,
23:29
Speaker 2: and so it helps me be more creative, I think,
23:33
Speaker 2: because I can write a historical and then I can
23:36
Speaker 2: write a contemporary, or I can write a beach story,
23:38
Speaker 2: or I can write about cowboys or.
23:41
Speaker 7: You know, just keep things interesting for me.
23:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's worked for one hundred and thirty four
23:46
Speaker 3: books now, I guess so can't really complain. But do
23:49
Speaker 3: you have editors or agents cautioning you against genre jumping,
23:54
Speaker 3: that you know you'll lose your audience or whatever.
23:57
Speaker 2: When I was just getting started, you know, I read
24:01
Speaker 2: all the advice I could find in the excite not
24:04
Speaker 2: to genres.
24:05
Speaker 7: But it's like, well, let's just try it. See what happened.
24:09
Speaker 2: So yeah, nothing bad happened, Good things happened, so I
24:12
Speaker 2: kept doing it.
24:14
Speaker 3: The other cool thing I plugged out of your bio
24:17
Speaker 3: cool because I could relate to it, is that you
24:19
Speaker 3: like to cook, apparently, and particularly enjoy experimenting with new recipes.
24:25
Speaker 3: So does that inform or enhance your writing or is
24:29
Speaker 3: it just a distraction you're writing when you'd rather be cooking,
24:33
Speaker 3: or the other way around.
24:34
Speaker 4: I don't know.
24:35
Speaker 7: No, Actually I cook. I don't mind cooking, but what
24:40
Speaker 7: I love to do is bake. I am a.
24:44
Speaker 2: That would be a third career choice. If I couldn't
24:47
Speaker 2: write or plan parties, that would be number four. And
24:51
Speaker 2: I do like to experiment with recipes. I'm always thinking about,
24:56
Speaker 2: well this was good, But what if I did this
24:58
Speaker 2: to it and tweak it this way or add this ingredient.
25:00
Speaker 2: And because I love to make every book that I
25:04
Speaker 2: write has a recipe at the back of it, and
25:07
Speaker 2: so it's fun for me to incorporate that recipe in
25:10
Speaker 2: some way in a scene.
25:11
Speaker 7: With the character.
25:12
Speaker 2: So I guess you could say that, Yeah, my love
25:15
Speaker 2: for that does carry into my books. And for the
25:18
Speaker 2: most part, neither one is a distraction to the other.
25:21
Speaker 7: They just compliment each other.
25:24
Speaker 5: That is so fun. Okay, with one hundred and thirty
25:28
Speaker 5: four books in your backlist, I've got to know what
25:34
Speaker 5: is your process? Like do you outline, do you just
25:37
Speaker 5: kind of work from notes? Do you just sit down
25:39
Speaker 5: and open up your computer and start typing?
25:42
Speaker 7: How do you approach a new project?
25:46
Speaker 2: I am a super visual person, So my step one
25:51
Speaker 2: is I create a Pinterest board for each book, and
25:54
Speaker 2: then I'm adding visual things like when I decide what
25:59
Speaker 2: the characters are going to look like, I've usually have
26:01
Speaker 2: already found like I know they want brown hair and
26:05
Speaker 2: blue eyes or whatever, so I start looking for a
26:08
Speaker 2: face that matches that, and so I put all that
26:11
Speaker 2: into my Pinterest board.
26:12
Speaker 7: So that's step one. For me, I don't outline.
26:16
Speaker 2: I'm very much a panster, like I know where I
26:19
Speaker 2: want the story to start and where I want it
26:21
Speaker 2: to end, but everything in between just kind of flows.
26:25
Speaker 2: I feel very fortunate my characters just whisper to me
26:30
Speaker 2: a lot, like I want to do this or no,
26:32
Speaker 2: don't let them do that. So, you know, I feel
26:35
Speaker 2: like once I get immersed in it, the characters are
26:37
Speaker 2: pretty chatty and they help guide me where we need
26:40
Speaker 2: to go to reach the happy ending.
26:43
Speaker 7: I do have a great editor team.
26:46
Speaker 2: There's four different editors that I use, just depending on
26:49
Speaker 2: which one's available.
26:50
Speaker 7: When I have a book ready to edit, so.
26:53
Speaker 2: It usually it's nice around three weeks to just get
26:58
Speaker 2: the first draft hammered out, and then the editing process
27:03
Speaker 2: is another anywhere from four to six weeks usually, so
27:07
Speaker 2: it takes about two to three months for me to
27:10
Speaker 2: have a book ready to release.
27:12
Speaker 5: Wow, wow, that's really impressive. And then what does a
27:16
Speaker 5: typical writing day look like for you?
27:21
Speaker 2: If I am in writing mode and not working on
27:24
Speaker 2: other stuff, I can spend anywhere from twelve to sometime
27:30
Speaker 2: sixteen hours writing.
27:32
Speaker 7: I just get in my zone and I wow.
27:37
Speaker 5: That's remarkable. Wow, did you say, twelve to.
27:40
Speaker 3: Sixteen, which explains the whole one hundred and thirty four
27:44
Speaker 3: published books.
27:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that broke my brain a little bit.
27:47
Speaker 7: That's really.
27:52
Speaker 4: That's a lot.
27:53
Speaker 5: I was nodding away and then I was like, wait,
27:55
Speaker 5: what did she just say?
27:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know I've only got sixty is it sixty
27:59
Speaker 3: six books? You're making me feel like a real underachiever here, Shannis.
28:05
Speaker 7: Awesome you have.
28:08
Speaker 5: Well, what are some of the things that you have
28:10
Speaker 5: learned so far in your writing journey. It's something that
28:13
Speaker 5: you might like to share with aspiring authors who might
28:17
Speaker 5: be listening.
28:20
Speaker 7: I think I think you need to listen to your heart.
28:24
Speaker 2: Like when I first got started, I, like I said,
28:28
Speaker 2: did all this research and all these you know authors
28:32
Speaker 2: who were successful. I tried doing all the different things
28:35
Speaker 2: they said to do, and you know, some of them
28:38
Speaker 2: are are at odds with each other, like you should
28:42
Speaker 2: do this and you should do that, and I think
28:44
Speaker 2: you just end up confused. So I think it's good
28:47
Speaker 2: to try things and figure out what works for you,
28:51
Speaker 2: what process works for you. If you're you don't have
28:54
Speaker 2: to outline if it doesn't work for you, which I
28:58
Speaker 2: did try. I took a class and it was all
29:00
Speaker 2: about outlining, because I thought I was doing something wrong
29:03
Speaker 2: when I first got started writing, because I didn't outline.
29:06
Speaker 2: So I took a class and I spent I can't
29:09
Speaker 2: even tell you how long outlining this whole book in
29:12
Speaker 2: depth outline. So then three weeks later I had still
29:16
Speaker 2: like written three pages because I just felt so confined,
29:20
Speaker 2: like my juices weren't flowing. I could not write anything,
29:24
Speaker 2: and so I threw out the outline and finished the book,
29:27
Speaker 2: and from going on like, I am not an outliner.
29:31
Speaker 2: I cannot do that. I have to just fly by
29:33
Speaker 2: the seat of my pants. But so to capsulize all
29:38
Speaker 2: my rambling is do what works for you, figure out
29:40
Speaker 2: what works for you, and then do that and then
29:43
Speaker 2: do it again.
29:44
Speaker 5: I do like it. I do like that advice, but
29:46
Speaker 5: I like that you tried it.
29:48
Speaker 7: I'm sad that you.
29:49
Speaker 5: Felt like you were doing something wrong, but I like
29:52
Speaker 5: that you tried it because I think that we need
29:54
Speaker 5: to try a lot of different things before we know
29:57
Speaker 5: what works the best for us exactly.
30:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you've clearly found something that works for you, Shanna,
30:06
Speaker 3: And unfortunately I've got to wrap this up. But one
30:08
Speaker 3: more question first, what will be coming out from you next.
30:15
Speaker 3: What can we be watching for.
30:17
Speaker 2: I have a new book in my Summer Creek series
30:20
Speaker 2: that you mentioned. It's coming October thirtieth. It's a rom
30:24
Speaker 2: com about a farmer and a girl from Hollywood who
30:28
Speaker 2: inherits a house next door. And then I'm going to
30:32
Speaker 2: have four new Christmas books out for the holiday season.
30:36
Speaker 5: Wow.
30:38
Speaker 3: Well that'll give you through the next few months. Anyway, right,
30:41
Speaker 3: let's have you back for your one hundred and fiftieth,
30:44
Speaker 3: which will probably.
30:45
Speaker 4: Be in a weekend or something.
30:50
Speaker 7: I love that.
30:51
Speaker 4: Thank you, Shanna.
30:52
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for being on the podcast today.
30:56
Speaker 7: Thank you so much for inviting me. It's going to
30:58
Speaker 7: joy to be here in Debt.
31:00
Speaker 4: Bye bye.
31:01
Speaker 3: Now just a few parting words. We have just gotten
31:06
Speaker 3: past the writer Con conference. Of course there'll be another
31:09
Speaker 3: one next year on Labor Day weekend, but we have
31:12
Speaker 3: just posted information about next year's writer Con Cruise, which
31:16
Speaker 3: will be in April of next year, no March of
31:19
Speaker 3: next year. This time we're leaving from Fort Lauderdale for
31:24
Speaker 3: an eight day, eight day cruise through the Eastern Caribbean.
31:27
Speaker 3: That's a new destination for us, a lot of new
31:30
Speaker 3: tropical vistas, like what all the Leeward Islands and other
31:35
Speaker 3: things I've certainly never been to. So beautiful scenery, warm weather,
31:40
Speaker 3: plus over twenty hours of writing instruction from Laura and I,
31:44
Speaker 3: plus an onborn agent who will happily talk to every participant.
31:50
Speaker 3: Will not just be lecturing, We'll be talking to you
31:53
Speaker 3: about your work in progress if you have one, so
31:55
Speaker 3: will the agent. So don't miss out. Plan to be
31:59
Speaker 3: with us March seventh to fifteenth. Visit the writer Con
32:03
Speaker 3: website for more information. Let me also remind you that
32:06
Speaker 3: writer Con has its own newsletter, Just send out a
32:10
Speaker 3: new issue is completely free on substack. Got wonderful articles
32:14
Speaker 3: on breaking issues like AI and writing fiction, producing audio books,
32:21
Speaker 3: and also have news about new agents, new publishing venues.
32:26
Speaker 3: Go to substack search for writer Con, sign up for
32:30
Speaker 3: this free website. All right, until next time, keep writing
32:36
Speaker 3: and remember you cannot fail if you refuse to quit.
32:41
Speaker 4: See you next time.